Here’s a new design for Michiru, utilizing some of the extra skill and technical refinements I’ve gained over the practice obtained these two months.

They were enthusiastic and helpful, but the execution of their flawless presentation, combined with the lack of pausing due to lack of internal efforts to remember about what to talk about next gave me a slight chill down my spine; it seemed to have been programmed into their brains. How often have they done this to become so mechanical? While I pondered this throughout the rest of the presentation with ears open for important information amongst their praise for their institution, the presentation eventually ended, and the event my classmates waited for anxiously began.

The portfolio review, as is with all reviews when it comes to art, was a blessing and a curse. (It was a blessing in disguise, since the curse nature ultimately helps you.) The ones in my class who drew more abstract and contemporary pieces for their portfolios were recommended to do more tediously painful realistic and lifelike pieces. I understood the professionals’ opinion - you needed them to get into a good art school after all- intense abstraction and cartoon illustration will only incrementally help or damage your high school art portfolio, with the latter not even acceptable from a traditional art perspective.

Although there were many things that I remember from today, there is one moment, albeit short compared to the rest of the day- that I don’t think I will forget for awhile.

Since I felt as if I’ve made a terrible mistake.

…But it wasn’t I who felt the consequences.

The seniors went first. One by one, they placed their work on the large tables scattered throughout the classroom, and waited patiently as the teachers rotated systematically from one table to another. The next student would place his or her piece on the next table as they waited for them to finish helping out the previous student. One by one, my classmates’ ego and pride got their share of bashings and upliftings. During this time, some of the other students in line would talk amongst themselves, but after being reviewed, they were generally quieter than they were prior to the review. Then, I knew why.

My turn came last. Since only two out of the students in my class were juniors out of a class of seniors, my teacher made sure to get them helped first, as a chance for a point in the right direction such as this might not reappear.

It was intimidating. Since the teachers did this many, many times before, their voices emanated a painfully professional tone and their words flowed out like silk. They asked me:

“So what field are you thinking about getting into?”

“Animation and Illustration, I think.” I answered.

Taking that statement as a solid image of my dreams for the future, they quickly replied with recommendations for more tediously painful life-like and realistic drawings, but from life rather than photos. They also recommended a figure drawing course, which I’ve been planning to take over the summer for a few weeks now. Those suggestions remained in my head though, and the session ended soon after, with them talking to my teacher exclusively in the end. However, they only reviewed one of the juniors.

Since the session eventually worked its’ way into the next period, students started flowing into the class, and it became hard to determine who was from the previous class - especially for guests to the school. While conversing with the teacher, they slowly moved towards the classroom exit, and eventually disappeared with a shut of the door.

During this time, I picked up my pieces and put it in a large folder with the rest of the pieces already photographed for slides and reviewed. At the corner of the now filled room sat the other junior in my class at a computer, her pieces stacked on top of each other on the neighboring desk. She’s a few months older than me, and I know her as a friend who had a strong sense of responsibility and respect. Also, she generally worked very hard and showed excitement and alertness while in the class.

I really wanted to call out to my teacher, since I knew that the girl would never interrupt a conversation between our teachers and the representatives from the institute, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been strange at all for me to do so, since I occasionally showed changes in personality and frankness, but for her, who was always so considerate, sometimes too considerate of others, it must have been an extremely hard, hypothetical task. I went to her and helped her put her works in the folder when the teachers left. As I was doing so, not many words left my mouth as the sense of distance from her increased, and the aftertaste of intimidation were still present within me from the encounter with the representatives. We didn’t make eye contact as she shifted from clicking around on the computer silently to placing the folders back on the cabinet soon after. I think I heard a slight quiver in the words she uttered when I asked her a question about the tasks I helped her out with.

In the end, we ended up receiving late waivers for our next classes, and went our diverted paths for the day. However, the mental repercussions of making that mistake stuck in my head. Would it have been better if I called out to the teacher? Or was there a chance of the representatives’ reply pouring salt on the wounds made that day? Whatever the diverse realities for today would have been had I not been a coward who keeps his concerns sealed behind his lips, it’s too late to change now. However, I still think that had I acted during the window of opportunity- which is now closed, the outcome would still have been a hundred times better than now.

Click for full-size.

The flow of events: I signed up for the school newspaper next year. They asked me to do a comic strip (well, two, but I’m still working on the second one) for them. I agreed to do these strips, and did one yesterday. I finished, and decided to post it here, since the girl’s design is loosely based off of Nagisa. (Since I am too lazy to come up with new character designs for something small like this.)

There is no official place to post these damned Twilight ~The Dawn of Memories~ (Formerly named Chisan no Yume Project) updates yet. I’ve already posted on the Lemmasoft Forums Thread , since I hoped this screenshot would help build anticipation for this tremendous project, but it might be necessary for me to purchase a domain in the future - or somewhere along those lines. Meanwhile, major updates will be transferred by us to Sho to announce on Moetaku.

Anyways, up top is a mock-up screen with alpha content. This is what my screen looked like as I compiled the spritesheet for ChrissieXD:

Visual content is still far from finished, but the bulk work of the first set of sprites is nearing completion. Just a few more poses and clothing sets and I can start the .png compilation process. As for the writing, I was truly amazed. Since I refrained from requesting Chrissie, Divinewind, or Serithnal for the (un)edited beta scripts, I had no idea how much many lines they pulled. After an edit pass or two (I can’t recall the exact number), the script ended up along the lengths 35 letter-sized pages, and 7,500-8,000 words. And that was just for one average-length chapter for one character. Sweet jesus!

Anyways, I’d like to take this time to welcome the following people to the Twilight development committee:

Atlantiza - very fast editor.

Serithnal - very good editor.

While I’m at it, I’ll also list the other current individuals involved in this ambitious project:

ChrissieXD (Also under the aliases Kotomi-Chan and Kristen) - co-director or project. I’m the other director.

Divinewind - Ecchi scripter. Makes too many ecchi easter eggs for his own good.

Talyx - Our talented music / audio composer / arranger.